OBJECTIVE: To further our investigation of the proximate mechanisms mediating the social suppression of ovulation in subordinate female marmosets . RESULTS In singular cooperatively breeding mammals, social status is a key determinant of female reproductive success. Usually only one dominant female breeds in a social group. In the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus), a cooperatively breeding primate, adaptations to nonbreeding subordinate status appear to parallel those found in social insect societies which demonstrate similar skew to the marmoset in female reproductive success. Female marmosets exhibit rank-related polyethism in behavior, reproductive neuroendocrinology and non-reproductive physiology, and subordinates participate in alloparental care and territory defense. Olfactory, visual and behavioral cues from dominant female marmosets provide important proximate cues regulating ovarian inhibition in female subordinates. Cooperatively breeding marmosets, therefore, appear to have developed specific neural and neuroendocrine adaptations to subordinate social status analogous to those found in social insects such as the lower wasps, bees and termites. Such parallel developments probably reflect the outcome of repeated convergent evolutionary attempts at adapting to environmental conditions not readily conducive to dispersal and independent breeding. FUTURE DIRECTIONS We plan to investigate specific changes in the social environment that reliably lead to escape from suppression of ovulation in subordinate female marmosets. KEY WORDS dominance, infertility, anovulation, polyethism, olfaction, cooperative breeding. IBN-9604321, NIH MH11417.